Advocate suspected of fraud in collection of moral damage from budget in favour of Chechen family

The Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) carries out the investigation into the criminal case against Shamil Musaev, an advocate of the "Nizam" Bar of the Chechen Republic, who represented the interests of family members of Vakhid Omaev, who was shot dead in 2001 by fighters of the federal troops. The advocate is accused of a large-scale fraud committed in collecting from the federal budget the compensation for non-pecuniary damage in favour of the Omaev family.

On April 11, the court was considering the issue on pre-trial restriction measure against Shamil Musaev in the form of detention. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Adam Abubakarov, the Vice-President of the Advocates' Chamber of the Chechen Republic.

The advocate has explained that family members of Vakhid Omaev appealed to Shamil Musaev for help in the case of collecting non-pecuniary damage in their favour. "The case was completed with a positive decision, after that, the Prosecutor's Office initiated a question stating that the documents provided by our colleague had been allegedly falsified. Shamil Musaev claimed that the documents had been handed over to him by one of his clients and that he could not be responsible for them," the advocate has stated.

Adam Abubakarov believes that the statement of the Prosecutor's Office about the falsification is unreliable and that the prosecution of Shamil Musaev is connected with his professional activities.

The local lawyers' community believes that the criminal proceedings against Shamil Musaev may become a precedent, which may contribute to analogous massive revision of the judicial decisions announced earlier.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.